Tansi Nîtôtemtik,
This week we will be spending three days writing on Christian churches and the control that churches had over the implementation and operation of residential schools.
While the Federal government and the cabinet ministers under John A. Macdonald were the primary architects of the residential school program in the late 1860s, Church leadership played a central and often complete role in running the day-to-day operations of residential schools.[1] For generations of survivors who were forced to attend residential schools, church leaders were the forefront perpetrators.
Portage la Prairie Residential School, operated by the United Church from 1925 until 1969, was designated a National Historic Site in 2020.
While residential schools were funded through federal grants,[2] church organizations had complete control over the operations of residential schools from the 1870s through to the 1950s, at which point the federal government took control over curriculum and hiring teachers. Church control over organization remained at residential schools until 1969,[3] and the influence of Christian Churches remained until the last school closed in 1996.[4]
The Catholic Church asserted the most control and ran 44 residential schools at the height of its operations.[5] Among the three other Christian denominations who organized and ran residential schools, the Anglican Church operated twenty-four residential schools,[6] the United Church operated thirteen and the Presbyterian Church operated two.[7] These four denominations were each party to the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement (IRSSA) which came into effect in 2007 – although the recognition of their involvement in implementing residential schools has differed by denomination.[8]
One part of the IRSSA was the national Aboriginal Healing Foundation, in which Christian Churches provided funding to support language and cultural revitalization projects. This foundation ended in 2014,[9] leading to Call 61 for Churches to provide permanent funding for such projects. Call 61 is outlined as follows:
We call upon church parties to the Settlement Agreement, in collaboration with Survivors and representatives of Aboriginal organizations, to establish permanent funding to Aboriginal people for:
Community-controlled healing and reconciliation projects.
Community-controlled culture and language revitalization projects.
Community-controlled education and relationship-building projects.
Regional dialogues for Indigenous spiritual leaders and youth to discuss Indigenous spirituality, self-determination, and reconciliation.
Church responses to Call 61 range from being poor to abysmal. The Catholic church, one of the wealthiest institutions on earth,[10] was already avoiding financial obligations it owed to the Aboriginal Healing Foundation by the time that this Foundation ended in 2014.[11] In 2016, it had collected and handed over just $3.7 million of the $25 million agreed to by the parties,[12] and has continued to shirk responsibility on agreed-upon reparations by choosing to renegotiate funding.[13] Our research did not find any examples of the Catholic Church making any further financial contributions or undertaking any commitments to Call 61.[14]Following the lead of the Catholic Church, the Anglican Church kept 2.7 million dollars that it had raised for the Aboriginal Healing Foundation and returned it to its own local church communities in 2016.[15]
The Anglican Church has raised $8 million for its own Healing Fund across the country since 1992, and while the Church provided consistent annual updates until 2016, there has been limited transparency as to how much money has been raised and how any money has been spent since Call to Action 61 was made.[16]
The United Church provides $100,000 in funding annually for Justice and Reconciliation programming that appears to come with a requirement that the funding remained tied to Church activities.[17] This has existed since 1998.[18] Since 1994, they have also provided $300,000 annually in a Healing Fund to address the impact of residential schools. While these are more significant contributions relative to the size of the United Church, we should note that like the Catholic Church, the United Church also scaled back their obligation to the shared Aboriginal Healing Foundation by $450,000 in 2016.[19]
One of the central aspects of Call 61 is for funding to be permanent and community controlled. While churches have provided funding for their own healing funds, which have contributed positively towards reconciliation, these programs are often run or directly financed by the churches themselves. These are the same powerful institutions whose religious and theological mission statements remain largely unchanged from when they ran residential schools. Churches remain effective organizations at raising funds and mobilizing support, and for Call 61 to be effective, funding needs to be provided consistently, permanently, widely, and without conditions.
We give an F for Canadian Church progress on Call 61. While the individual efforts of the United and Anglican Churches would move their individual grades to passing, as a collective there has not been enough progress made towards Call 61.
We recognize that faith and the intentions of religious institutions is a personal topic for many. As always, we invite dialogue publicly on this blog, or privately to our email at reconciliationyeg@gmail.com.
Until Tommorrow,
Team ReconciliAction
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[1] Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, "The History, Part 1 - Origins to 1939" (Ottawa: Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, 2015) at 149 [History Part 1].
[2] Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, "The History, Part 2 - 1939 to 2000" (Ottawa: Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, 2015) at 48.
[3] Ibid, at 79.
[4] Ibid.
[5] History Part 1, Supra note 1.
[6] While the Truth and Reconciliation Commission states that the Anglican Church ran 21, The Anglican Church states that they ran 24, see: Anglican Church, "Historical Sketch for Anglican Residential Schools," online: <https://www.anglican.ca/tr/schools/>.
[7] History Part 1, Supra note 1.
[8] This is a topic relating to Call 58 which will be explored further by this blog on Friday.
[9] Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, "Honouring the Truth, Reconciling for the Future: Summary of the Final Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada" (Ottawa: Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, 2015) at 233.
[10] See generally Kristopher Morrison, "Wealth of the Catholic Church Impossible to Calculate" Natioonal Post (9 March 2013) online: <https://nationalpost.com/news/wealth-of-roman-catholic-church-impossible-to-calculate>.
[11] Connie Walker, "Catholic Church withholding millions from victims, government alleges" CBC (18 February 2014) online: <https://www.cbc.ca/news/indigenous/catholic-church-withholding-millions-from-victims-alleges-government-1.2542363>.
[12] Assembly of First Nations, "2018 General Assembly Final Resolutions Resolution 15" online: <( https://www.afn.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/2018_Resolutions_ENG.pdf>.
[13] Sean Fine, "Other churches escape residential-school settlement obligations in wake of Catholic Deal" The Globe and Mail (26 April 2016) online: <https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/churches-escape-residential-school-settlement-obligations-in-wake-of-catholic-deal/article29767422/>.
[14] Wendy-Ann Clarke, "Five years in, reconciliation moves slowly,' Canadian Catholic News (30 December 2020) online: <https://grandinmedia.ca/five-years-in-reconciliation-with-first-nations-moves-slowly/>.
[15] Supra, note 13.
[16] The Anglican Church of Canada, "Summary of Projects" online: <https://www.anglican.ca/healingfund/projects/>.
[17] The United Church of Canada, "Justice and Reconciliation Fund" online: <https://united-church.ca/social-action/justice-initiatives/reconciliation-and-indigenous-justice/justice-and-reconciliation>.
[18] The United Church of Canada, "The United Church of Canada’s Response to the
Truth and Reconciliation Commission Calls to Action" (November 2019) online: <https://united-church.ca/sites/default/files/ucc-response-trc-calls.pdf>.
[19] Supra, note 13.
